I’ll let you in on a secret. I agonized over whether or not to use the word ‘sequel’ in the title of this post. Why? Because I know writers who cringe at the mention of the word. I know other authors who flatly deny using sequels in their fiction. Odds are they do use them and just don’t recognize it.
Why is sequel a must?
I’m not talking here about the kind of sequel that continues a story in a subsequent book or movie. Rather, I mean the sequel that is an integral part of your story’s structure. Sequel gets the reader from one scene to the next. It is that part of the story that is not conveyed in the action of the plot. It is the character’s reaction to that action. It is, in short, the emotional connective tissue of any novel. Without it characters rush headlong through a story without the reader understanding why they are doing so. A sequel may be a few words or a few pages, but if your goal as a writer is to deliver an emotional punch, sequel is indispensible.
Why study sequel?
It took several workshops and a few great craft of writing books before the idea of sequels clicked for me. When that happened, I realized immediately that I’d already been writing them. Most writers include them instinctively. That being the case, why bother to study them? Once you better understand sequels you can use that understanding to strengthen them in your work, mold them to suit your storytelling style, ensure they are working at peak effectiveness to deliver the emotional experience readers crave.
The structure of the sequel.
Although the characters in your story need not act perfectly logical at all times, the structure of your story needs to function in a rational manner. Action leads to reaction, cause to effect, and one action must connect to and grow rationally from the last to propel the story forward. Sequels provides the bridges between the action of your scenes. They gives the character time to react. Sequels can vary greatly, but should generally follow the logical pattern we know from real life. When something happens, something significant, your first reaction will probably be an emotional one. How do we deal with that emotion (and more importantly for storytelling, how does the character deal with it in a way that gets us to the next scene)? We think it thorough, come to some decision and then take action. Depending on the circumstances, this process may happen very quickly or take a great deal of time.
For example, a character sees her child fall into a river. She immediately feels fear (emotion), but quickly pushes past her fear to assess that her child cannot swim and will drown if the child is not immediately rescued (thought). In under a minute she has realized she will jump into the river (decision) and has taken that desperate leap (action). She went through the entire pattern of emotion, thought, decision, and action in a few seconds. Because the moment is so urgent, you as author might choose to deal with the entire process with a single sentence. If you also want to get the most emotional punch, revisit the character’s reaction to almost losing her child at greater length in a more expansive sequel.
No navel gazing required.
One reason I often hear for why authors don’t like sequel is that they think sequel must always be paragraphs of internalization dumped in and allowed to stick out like a sore thumb. That is not necessarily true. Internalization, well written and well placed, can be used very effectively, but it is not the only option for sequel. The clever sequel can masquerade as a scene. A sequel can take the form of a conversation with another character or it can be dealt with while the character is doing something active.
The first step in sequel is emotion. Emotion can be deftly conveyed through body language as a character is set in motion. Perhaps not the purposeful motion of a true scene, but deceptively close. Using the example of the woman who leapt into the river to save her child, later that night the woman processes her fear. Rather than sit on the couch and think, she climbs up to the attic and digs out a box of keepsakes from when the child was a toddler. The way she moves and handles the items in the box conveys emotion. This looks like action but the only thing truly happening is the character processing emotion. As she unpacks the items in the box, she will think about what has happened, what it means to her and what she wants to do about it.
Patterns of scene and sequel.
Continuing with our mother and child example, the time between the river incident and her evening at home might be described in summary (a tool eschewed in scene but useful in sequel) or it might be shown as a series of moment by moment scenes (if they further develop a story conflict) before finally getting to the sequel. There is no one correct pattern of scenes and sequels. No definitive length requirements. That pattern is uniquely your own and becomes a part of your story telling style and voice. It is up to you to determine how to use sequels to meet the goals of your story and fulfill the expectations of the genre you are writing.
Put a sequel check at the top of your editing checklist.
I mentioned earlier that most writers include sequels instinctively. We are readers first and as a reader you have probably long loved the emotion of sequels without using that label. It is natural to include them in our own work. However, adding a sequel check to your editing process can ensure that no opportunity to deliver emotional impact in your story has been missed. Checking that your sequels include emotion, thought, and decision, leading to action, will give you an opportunity to fine tune and strengthen your storytelling.
I’ll close with another secret (or more likely an obvious fact). This is the first post I’ve done on sequel—my first attempt at sharing my thoughts on this powerful part of novel structure. I hope it was helpful, but if I’ve left you dazed and confused, please blame it on me and don’t give up on sequel.